Haryana MLAs get hike in housing, car loans — on demand

Laptops being arranged by officials before distribution among Haryana MLAs on Tuesday. (Soource: Express Photo by Jaipal Singh)

Some prompt decisions were taken at the Haryana assembly on Tuesday although the House was not in session. The decisions involved the welfare of the MLAs themselves.

At an event to distribute free laptops to the MLAs, Congress legislator from Hassanpur Udai Bhan demanded the upper limit of car and housing loans for the legislators be doubled. He was following up on a request from party colleague Jai Tirath, the MLA from Rai constituency, who wanted drivers for all legislators.

While the MLAs could not reach a consensus on the driver issue, Haryana Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ram Bilas Sharma instantly agreed to hike the car loan limit to Rs 15 lakh. At present, the MLAs can avail Rs 10 lakh as car loan and Rs 40 lakh as house loan.

Sharma’s assurance didn’t, however, suffice for Bhan, who contended that good cars could not be bought with the amount. Sharma then agreed to hike the loan limit to Rs 20 lakh. While the decision to increase the limit of house loan to Rs 60 lakh was not finalised here, the government approved it later in the day. Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar announced the decision to hike the loan limits.

It all, however, began when the laptops and printers, worth Rs 77,000 each kit, were being distributed in the Vidhan Sabha. Leader of Opposition Abhay Chautala started off the demands by urging CM Manohar Lal Khattar to provide computer operators to every MLA, stating that most of them did not know how to operate the laptops.

Khattar, however, told Chautala that if he (Khattar) could learn how to use computers at his age then so could the others. Chautala insisted that some members would not be able to learn. Khattar then suggested that the issue could be taken up in the next Assembly session and stuck to his stand despite Chautala protesting that it would take six months.

It was here that the other demands began to pour, beginning with Tirath seeking drivers for the MLAs.

Source:: Indian Express